


Unresponsive

by AlexWR



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Algarve Cup, F/F, Football, Football | Soccer, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Character Injury, Panic, Panic Attacks, US Women's Soccer National Team
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 23:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14820830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexWR/pseuds/AlexWR
Summary: During a USA vs. Portugal, the USWNT wins a corner kick. Christen, while trying to win the header, gets pushed by a defender and ends up crashing into the goalpost, immediately falling unconscious.





	1. Crash & Panic

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why, but stories where a player gets severely hurt are the ones I like to read the most and, perhaps due to my inability to search or simple lack thereof, I haven't found many. So, here it is.  
> I'm a short phrases type of writer, feels easier to keep focus and allows me to skip long descriptions since they are hard for me considering my first language isn't English (you could probably guess by the opposing team uh?). Hope you enjoy!

It's a sunny day, not too hot, perfect for the players, for the USA vs. Portugal Algarve cup game. Stadium is packed with supporters of both teams, mostly Portugal obviously, waiting for an amazing game. Although the USA has come to Portugal every year for the Algarve Cup, both nations have never played eachother and the sudden rise of women's soccer in the home nation has sky rocketed their rating and have become a well-known opponent.

The referee blows the whistle, starting the match with the USA getting the kick-off. 

Everything goes as everyone was expecting, a balanced match with the usual scuffles and quick plays.

End of first half. No goals for either side, reinforcing the idea that the game will be fought until the very end.

The second half begins now with Portugal kicking it off. Immediately you can see an energy spike on both sides, even more motivated to win the match. The game picks up pretty fast and it's certain to create a lot more excitement.

Minute 57. Corner for the USWNT taken by Tobin Heath. The ball gets a perfect trajectory to Christen and when she jumps to head it in, a portuguese defender jumps too, ending up tackling her to the side. That's when all hell broke loose.

Press's head goes straight into the goalpost, leading her to immediately fall to the ground, motionless.

"Christen!" Tobin runs straight to her girlfriend, now lying on the grass. "Chris, baby, open your eyes!" She says, kneeling next to the foward. She didn't care who heard her, even though they weren't 'out' and were supposed to keep it 'professional' while on USWNT duty. This was her girlfriend, who was now laying on the ground and who had started seizing. 

The entire stadium gets quiet, waiting for good news from the field, leaving the screams for help to echo through the area. The medical staff enters the pitch full speed, realizing that it was a seriously bad injury. As they get closer, most players leave the premises, leaving them room to do their job. 

Everything goes in slow motion, especially for the midfielder. She gets forcefully pulled away from Christen by Alex, Allie and Ashlyn to allow the medics do what they needed to make sure Chris was safe. 

Numbness. That's all Tobin felt. She sat on the ground, eyes fixed on the foward lying uncounscious. Her teammates try to talk to her, comfort her but to no success.

"Tobin, look at me." Alex pleaded. "Tobin, please. Christen's going to be fine."

"You don't know that." Tobin finally speaks, without any emotion in her voice. "No one does."

In the meantime, Christen had stopped seizing and was in the process of being put into a guerney, an ambulance already at the exit. She was still out, needing an oxygen mask to breath regularly.

"She's already being taken care of, see?" Ashlyn now tries to bring Tobin out of the apparent shock stage. "She's being taken to the hospital and will be awake in no time."

"I... she..."

"Go." Lloyd comes in to the conversation.

"I... can't."

"Do I need to say it again? Go. You can't play like this, I've cleared it with Jill. Go be with Chris, she needs you."

"I... I-" Tobin's breath hitches and she starts breathing erratically, worrying her teammates around her. Carli immediately calls for help from the paramedic cleaning up the scene but he's unable to help, needing to get Christen as fast as possible to the hospital. Their own medics are the ones that step up and try to see what's happening.

"Tobin. The breathing exercises we talked about, use them. You need to calm down and breathe." One of them says. Her teammates look around, not understanding why Tobin had needed help before from their doctor with these situations.

The referee goes around saying that the organization had agreed on a five minute break to regroup and restart the match due to the circumstances, the increasing rain also not helping, making the field slippery. They use this time to get Tobin into the locker room, Christen already on her way to the hospital. They get her an oxygen mask, trying to regulate her breathing but to only some minor success. Four minutes pass by and the players that had gone with Tobin were called back. One of the staff of the USA is called to acompany her to the hospital in order to perhaps get a sedative and to be close to Christen.

Everything is blurry for the midfielder. She doesn't remember the trip. She doesn't remember being submmited. She definitely doesn't remember anything else, as she is given a sedative in order to stop her panic attack, dozing off.


	2. Hospital & Update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now at the hospital, the team wonders how their friends are doing, not being able to get an update on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, sorry 'bout that.

"How is Chris? And where is Tobin?" Most of the girls question the USWNT staff that had accompanied them. 

"Everyone, slow down." Jill tries to calm them down. "They're both being checked out. Listen, the hospital was gracious enough to lend us their conference room to organize and update you. Let's just move up there and talk a bit about everything that's going on, not stand here in the middle of the waiting room disrupting the movement here."

Five minutes later most of the team is seated, some standing up, waiting for updates on their friends. Their team medic stands up.

"So, pretty sure you guys are all worried sick so I'm just going to get straight to the point. First of all, Press is currently getting some tests done. She's been in and out of consciousness since she's gotten here so they're making sure that she doesn't have anything more serious than an already bad concussion. Tobin on the other hand, is resting in their room. She was having a pretty bad panic attack so the medics here decided to give her a sedative to let her body rest. I think that's everything so far. Any questions?"

"Can we go see them, Tobin at least right now?"

"They've actually been put in the same room. This hospital doesn't have all that many beds and rooms available so not only have they put them in a bit of a more secluded area to keep the media away but also to be able to control the noise, light and all of that for Christen because of her concussion. It'll also help them both to be in the same room for when they wake up and to us to keep an eye on them both. They're allowing three people at a time to visit right now, so you can figure some sort of system and visit them in shifts. They're allowing people to stay even out of visiting hours just for us so that they'll have someone they know with them at all times, we are in a foreign contry after all. They're putting one of their on-call bed in there that they don't need and there's two semi comfortable chairs so you can stay overnight. The team bus will be stopping by in about ten minutes get the rest of you. Use your recovery boots when you get to the hotel, we'll keep you all updated. We'll have a team meeting tomorrow at 9. Whoever goes now gets to stay with them overnight, understood?"

"If you guys don't mind, I would like to be be in there." Alex says. "Me too." Allie adds. "And me." Kelley says quietly in the back.

"Alright, so that settles it for now, you can figure out the rest through texts. I assure you, they're both fine. Just show your USWNT identification and they'll show you the room."

Everyone stands up, the three who had agreed to go first getting together and heading out. Before doing so, Alex and Allie stop by their physician.

"Listen, when we were out on the field and Tobin was panicking, you said something about having talked to her about breathing exercises? What was that about?"

"She.. uhm.. Tobin had some trouble coming back from her back injury. Although doctors repeatedly said that she was 100% recovered, she was still afraid of playing since she is someone who usually gets fouled quite often and a bad tackle or fall and that, to her, could develop into missing even more games, perhaps have it become worse. Last camp I saw her acting different and asked if everything was okay. Turns out she was starting to panic. We had a talk and came up with a couple of solutions. She hasn't had a panic attack since then I think, at least she hasn't told me of any."

"Thanks, we'll keep that in mind. I had no idea."

"Tobin always likes to act like the tough one but she's got a lot going on inside. Christen has been a big help." Allie strings along. "Seeing her in that state just.. broke her."

"It did. Stay with her, the sedative they gave might start to wear off so she'll probably wake up in a bit, pretty disoriented. Keep her calm, I'm sure they'll bring Christen back to her bed in no time."

"We'll, uh.. We'll text you guys okay?" They say goodbye to their teammates, being afterwards escorted to their friends rooms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I lied, If I were to make this the last chapter, I would take even more time than what I've already taken. I'm just going to go with the flow and when it ends, it'll end. Short chapter are at least something am I right?


End file.
